--Preface of “Mystery of Color Vision and Fundamental
Questions in Philosophy”
As
long as a person opens his eyes to face this world, he will meet the problems discussed
in this book. Is the red color of flowers and the green color of grass
displayed in front of our eyes only sensations in our minds or objective
existence as the same as we see? Is a color perception similar to or totally
different from a natural light that objectively exists? Further question is:
Are red flowers and green grass just our sensations in minds or what
objectively exist in the way as we see, or what exist in totally different way
from our sensations?
As
early as ancient ages of Greece, atomists gave us the answer that is rather
scientific. It is said that what objectively exist is only the material world
made of atomics. The motion of atomics causes human sensations. Color, sound,
smell… are all human sensations, and related to human sense organs’
conformations, and totally different from those atoms that cause sensations (I
will explain why the answer is not completely correct later). The answer from
the modern natural science is very similar.
However,
this answer brings a series of philosophical problems that puzzle us. If red
and green colors are only sensations in human minds, why red flower and green
grass are not? If a sensation is totally different from the outside object or
its property that causes sensation, how can we know appearance of the outside
object itself?
The
problems brought by atomists are just revealed by the philosophically
fundamental questions proposed by Engels, i.e. the question about relationship
between thinking and existence, which includes two questions: the question
about original existence of the world and the question about whether the world
is knowable.
I
know there is a fashionable opinion: the fundamental question in philosophy, or
the question about the original existence of the world, is a false question,
and the argument between materialism and idealism is meaningless because there
are no different sensations or experiences deduced from the affirmations about
whether the world is made of matter or spirit.
But,
I still persist in discussing the fundamental questions in philosophy. This is
not because I have some faith and fight for the faith, neither because I have
encyclopedical knowledge so that I can provide better summing-up. This is only
because I happened to have two discoveries, which force me, and also force
academe，to
review the fundamental questions in philosophy from new visual angle to get
conclusions that accord with natural science better.
My
first discovery is that idealism, positivism，and materialism
(mainly native materialism) all wrongly understand the relationship between
language, sensations, and outside objects. In daily life, we define words
“red”, “green”, “acid”, “salt”, “soft”, “hard”, “cold”, “hot” and son on
actually according to outside objects instead of sensations. The conformability
of people’s speaking language cannot ensure the conformability of their
sensations (for example, it is possible that two persons conformably say
“flower is red and grass is green” and have opposite color perceptions[1]).
It is unfeasible to reduce the world with red, green, acid, salt, cold, hot,
and other material properties into sensations as idealism does, into
world-elements as Machism does, or into sense data as logical empiricism does.
It is also unfeasible to affirm that a sensation is similar to a material
property as inornate materialism does.
This
discovery forces me to believe that 1) The world described by daily language is
not natural world, phenomenological world, or presentational world proposed by
Kant, neither neutral world or world made of elements or sense data, but
material world that objectively exists as affirmed by materialism. 2) Atomists
in ancient Greece and symbolists, such as Kant and Helmholtz, in Germany are
correct in affirming the dissimilarity between a sensation and a material
property that causes the sensation.
Atomism and mechanical
materialism represented by John Locke’s theory affirm that motion of Atoms or
matter causes human sensations; yet, a sensation and a material property are
totally dissimilar. However, symbolists represented by Kant and Helmholtz
further affirm that the sensations in organs are only symbols, they are
discretional, and there is no certain one-to-one relation between a sensation
and a material property. This viewpoint is called agnosticism.
So
far, my above conclusion is probably also thought of as agnosticism. However, I
happened to have the second discovery.
My
second discovery is that there exists a skillful mathematical model of color
vision——the
decoding model 【8～10】,
whose principle is similar to the principle of 3-8 decoder in numeric circuits.
The model can explain various phenomena of color vision, especially the
evolution of color vision, better. We can conclude from the decoding model that
1) A color perception is only a symbol that can continuously vary. 2) A series
of color perceptions contain information from outside objects since different
color perceptions reflect different natural lights, even if a color perception
is dissimilar to a material property. 3) The mechanism of color vision was
continuously evolving for requirement of discerning outside objects. The
presentational or phenomenological world was involving with the mechanism of
color vision involving, by which the objectify theory
developed by Feuerbach and Marx can be explained in the way of natural
science.
The
generalized information theory[2]
I set up is tightly related to my second discovery. For measuring the
information conveyed by color vision, I extended Shannon’s information theory
to general information theory, which can measure and optimize sensitive
information, as well as the information conveyed by language and forecasts. The
results from the generalized information theory are consistent not only with
common sense, but also with Popper’s philosophical theory. For example,
according to this theory, the more necessary an occasional event is predicted
as, and the prediction can be proved correct by facts, the more information the
prediction conveys; a proposition that is true in any case provides no
information; a lie or bad prediction conveys negative information; it will
decrease the information we have had to believe a fortune teller running off at
the mouth.
There
are mainly two kinds of agnosticism. One is Kant’s agnosticism, which affirms
thing-in-itself (or objective thing) is unknowable. Another is Hume’s
agnosticism, which affirms the relationship between a cause and a result (or
objective rule) is unknowable. Marx’s practice-testing theory and Popper’s
knowledge-evolving theory can resolve the problem with Hume’s agnosticism. But,
about whether the problem with Kant’s agnosticism has been resolved, there are
still arguments. Kant would have said that what you have resolved is only the
problem about whether phenomenological world is knowable; however you still cannot
resolve the problem about whether the thing-in-itself, which is totally
different from sensations, is knowable.
Now,
with the help of my two discoveries and new information theory, we can have two
ways to prove the thing-in-itself is knowable.
1)
We know that the objects described by daily language are knowable. Yet, the
objects pointed by daily language are just material objects themselves. So,
material objects themselves are knowable, or say, the thing-in-itself is
knowable.
2)
Although sensations are dissimilar to material objects or their properties,
they contain information about material objects. This information can be
measured by the generalized information formula similar to Shannon’s
information formula. So, the material object or the thing-in-itself is knowable
from the viewpoint of natural science.
Moreover,
my research concerning lingual information also supports Mark’s
practice-testing theory and Popper’s knowledge-evolving theory. So, the
agnosticism does not fit my standpoint at all.
For
explaining relationship between sensations and outside objects and summarizing
up my research, I proposed analog-symbolic theory or analog-symbolism, which is
based on Darwin’s theory of evolution, the theories of color and color vision
developed by Young and many later researchers, and also my theories on color
vision and information. The analog-symbolism is also the extension of the
relativistic principle from physics to philosophy. It accepts atomists and
mechanical materialists’ view-point about relation between the sensation and
the outside object (the motion of matter results in the sensation, however a
sensation and a material property are dissimilar), affirms and extends Kant and
Helmholtz’s symbolism, carries on the relativity thought in Feuerbach and Marx’s objectify
theory (for resolving problem with Kant’s dualism), inherits Lenin and many
materialists’ view-point that color, sound, smell… objectively exist（against idealism and positivism）.
This
book has both scientific explorations and philosophical analyses. However, what
it provides is very different from popular scientific philosophy. The popular
scientific philosophy is supposed to sum up and guide science. But my effort is
opposite. I always try to base philosophy on science. For example, I use
mathematical model of color vision to explain that the sensations are analog
symbols, use the information theory to resolve the problems with agnosticism,
and extend relativity principle from physics to philosophy.
I
have unified many very extreme standpoints together in my theory. These
standpoints look mutually repulsive to other people; yet from my viewpoint,
they are not contradictive with each other but very compatible.
The
main purpose of this book is to eliminate the people’s bepuzzlement about the
fundamental questions in philosophy. Before writing this book, I wrote another
book: “Mystery of Beauty-feeling and Evolution of Demand”, whose main purpose
is to eliminate the people’s bepuzzlement about problems with beauty-feeling
and demand. It is also based on some discoveries— about the arising rule of
pleasant feelings and avian esthetic interest. These two books respectively
discuss cognitive relationship and motivational
relationship between human and outside would. They are comprehensive summing-up
of my many years’ researches.
If
my effort is not ineffectual, I will be incomparably gratified.
Lu, Chenguang
Feb. 13, 2003
Personal
English websites: http://survivor99.com/lcg/english;
[1] Later, I found the inverted sensations had been discussed by Americans. But they didn’t get my conclusions on linguistic definitions. See S. Shoemaker’s article: The inverted spectrum, J. of Philosophy 79(1982),375-381
[2]
Chenguang Lu, A generalization of Shannon’s information theory , Int. J. of
General Systems, 28: 6（1999），453-490