If You Place a Red Crayon Under a Bowl, What Color Is It?

<p>Dan's question about photography-sans-ideas reminded me of this thought exercise (I need all I can get). We all know that color is determined by what hue the light source is, and by which light rays an object absorbs, and which are reflected back to our eyes. Anyone that's attempted to make B&W inkjet prints understands one aspect of this very well, when their reddish B&W prints turn greenish in different light.</p>

<p>So if you have a red object and place it under a bowl so that light can't get to it, what color is it? Without light reflected by it, or absorbed by it............The way I figure, since you need light to see the color, then you would never be able to know what color it is in the dark. Oh, theories could be thought up, postulates postulated, but how would you really, really know? I say that you would never know. A red object could turn green, or go transparent, who knows? It's unknowable.</p>

<p>I say it turns into a black cat:)</p>

<p>It's exactly the same crayon as before, but since "color" and red" are human concepts and no one can see it and react to it, it isn't any color at all.</p>

<p>What does a 200 lb man weigh in space? What is weight, anyway?</p>

<p>Science answers these questions in 2 paragraphs. Philosophy debates these questions endlessly.</p>

<p>Michael said: "Science answers these questions in 2 paragraphs." Wrong. Science requires measurement. Philosophy, among other things, attempts to deal with what can't be measured -- in 'paragraphs' or otherwise.</p>

<p>I lived in a house with two philosophy majors, a contemporary religion major, and a physic major. To say the least, it was wild on discussion nights:)</p>

<p> </p>

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<p><em>"Wrong."</em></p>

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<p>That's a pretty strong assertion, Julie, and you might have perceived some level of dismissiveness on my part which wasn't the intention. </p>

<p>Asking questions in science strongly correlates with philosophy. The speculation of unperceived existence and the unobserable also very much factors into scientific approaches and its inquiry and discovery. </p>

<p>The difference is, science is the search for fact whereby philosophy might be more a quest in search of truth. <br>

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<p>Being unobservable (therefore unmeasurable) might have something to do with debating endlessly, no? Continue on...I'm breaking out some gouda:)</p>

<p>Being unobserable doesn't preclude fact-based scientific hypothesis, but doing so requires in-depth and broad based knowledge or it'll just be groundless opinions.</p>

<p>If you subscribe to Philosophy Talk, there was an interesting broadcast back in December titled "Has Science Replaced Philosophy?":<br /> <a href="http://philosophytalk.org/blog/2012/12/has-science-replaced-philosophy">http://philosophytalk.org/blog/2012/12/has-science-replaced-philosophy</a></p>

<p>It's a 45MB MP3 download; you might get access to past episodes if you subscribe.</p>

<p>But, Michael, isn't science/tech often driven or at least affected by politics? That's a big flaw, some would say...</p>

<p>Leslie, you must have something specific in mind to suggest that sci/tech might be politically driven, but consider NASA's missions, for example, to discover ultimately where we come from and what it all means - a quest driven by that eternal question from which spawned religion and philosophy.</p>

<p>And isn't "in-depth and broad based knowledge" just grounded *opinion* of the prevalent paradigm of the time?</p>

<p>If you're colour-blind (for red hues), was it ever a red crayon at all?<br>

Is Schrödinger's Cat dead or alive? Is the frequency of a siren on an ambulance steady, or does it depend on the speed with which is approaches you (Doppler effect)? Doesn't our point of view, position and situation affect the way we observe things?<br>

Usually I would add "And is the pope catholic?", but since we're almost left without a pope, that question at present might actually be more complex.</p>

<p>Schrodinger's cat still had 9 lives, right?</p>

<p>It could be, if you apply it to things like the debate over global warming, but opinions and conclusions drawn by individuals doesn't negate the validity of individual pieces of raw data. </p>

<p>This is where science, philosophy, and belief systems often have an uncomfortable coexistence. </p>

<p>Michael, but an individual raw data has to have context, and the context is often determined by the current interest of the time. For instance, currently, there are much more interest and context in cyberspace. So, private and public funding/research are much stronger in this field than, say, cancer research. As a result, we are progressing faster in web tech than, say, finding a cure/better treatment for cancer.</p>

<p>In short, we often look for things we want to find. And those things are often driven, or at least affected by money/politics. Stuff we don't bother to find, we often don't even look for...</p>

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<p>Leslie, you've made broad generalizations which might not be supported by evidence. There are countless dollars spent in both pure and applied sciences and technologies in every domain. </p>

<p>The spirit in which an endeavour takes place shouldn't contaminate the spirit of the domain which can not exist in isolation. It must have a purpose and a priority, unlike the arts. </p>

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<p>There are countless dollars spent in both pure and applied sciences and technologies in every domain.</p>

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<p>And you are telling me I generalize? You are so wrong on this...</p>

<p>I just saw this, I was gonna ask if this was Schrodingers Crayon.</p>

 

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<p>This is where science, philosophy, and belief systems often have an uncomfortable coexistence</p>

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<p>Agreed to the extend that this is the point where their objectives differ too much to still have the same point of view on the matter..... ;-)</p>

<p>What crayon?</p>

<p>In principle, it's uncertain...</p>

<p>Luis, HAHAHAHA... . You made me spew my cereal!</p>

<p>There are interesting philosophical issues, here. If you allow yourself to operate on the possibility that the crayon becomes a different object when it's covered by a bowl, then you are allowing yourself a completely different world at odds with testable reality. Once room is made for magical thinking, philosophical discussions take on a far more ridiculous (and pointless) flavor. Angels, dancing on pins, etc.<br /><br />Saying the crayon is "red," by the way, is just a very short-hand way of describing its molecular makeup. In practical terms (relative to the OP's question), that makeup doesn't change when the crayon is shaded from visible light.</p>

<p>Philosophy sometimes produces a lot of words by declining to define things, and by making various elementary errors (e.g. confusing the name of the thing with the thing named). More or less deliberately, I suspect, because those books and papers aren't gonna write themselves.</p>

<p>The original question is just a meaningless noise with a definition of what you mean by "red", and with such a definition in hand, the answer is obvious.</p>

<p>This is precisely the kind of thing a certain class of philosopher confuses with "deep" because it seems to create a lot of debate and so on, but in reality it's just a poorly posed question.</p>