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From: cespg@mail.bris.ac.uk (Stu)
Subject: Re: hard sciences
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Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 08:38:43 GMT
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I Johnston (ianj@tattoo.ed.ac.uk) wrote:
: Mike Sullivan (mcs127@nwu.edu) wrote:

: : The color of a light ray can be measured by a machine. So, I can know that 
: : a light ray is red without ever perceving its redness.

: Tautology time. The colour of a light ray depends very much on the
: context - the same light may be perceived as more than one colour. So
: yes, you can measure something you choose to call redness, but that is
: no guarantee at all that to an observer the light will be red.

: Ian

Red corresponds to a particular range of frequencies. Everyone who is
not colour blind will see this colour as what they call red. If you do not
believe that colours can be measured by a machine and reproduced, try watching
a colour TV some time.

Unless of course you are trying to argue that some colour which is not
exactly red, say almost pink but not quite, may be called one colour by
someone and another by someone else - that says more about human incapability
to express colour, that it does for the machine.

-Stu

