how can you logically understand the color red?

[Atb210201]

@Holygrail It's just an appearance

[Nahm]

11 hours ago, Holygrail said:

cant wait to see what that entails

Excited for ya. Might be a nugget or two which sparks a thing or two in here… 

 

[DocWatts]

If you're interested in the phenomenology of color perception, I'd highly recommend The Embodied Mind by Thompson, Varella, and Rosch. 

The book is an effort to build a bridge between second generation cognitive science and the contemplative wisdom tradition contained within Buddhism.

In the work, the authors frequently use the perception of color as a case study to demonstrate that meditative practices of contemplation can be used to experientially validate the claims of cognitive science.

When we consider color, we come to realize that it isn't something that exists "out there" in an external world with pre-given features. But neither is it a complete fabrication of a disembodied mind (as evidenced by people blind from birth having no frame of reference for color).

Rather, what color is a codependent origination (or interaction) between a mind that's embedded and embodied in environment. 

So yes color is something that is experienced rather than a pre-given feature of objects in an external world. But it's also important to keep in mind that it is an interaction, not something that the mind fabricates on its own independent of any input, owing to the fact that the mind is inherently embodied.

Edited September 22, 2021 by DocWatts

[Happy Lizard]

On 9/21/2021 at 9:18 AM, Nahm said:

@Holygrail

Seemingly contrary to popular belief perhaps, it is not possible to think perception. There is simply no such thing as red. There is the thought “red”, as a label, which was learned & can be relinquished (no longer believed / attached to) anytime. 

“Do not try and bend the spoon, that’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth … There is no spoon. Then you’ll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.”

Off topic but not too off.. 

is realizing “Truth” the same as losing all realization in one go? I can imagine my life being radically different losing the definition of Colors, words, objects etc. while everyone around me seem to be stuck with the definition of these things. Like actually if that happens I would probably see a huge contrast between the way I relate to the world and the way others do, which to me sounds a lot like what awaking has been described to be. 

Edited September 25, 2021 by Happy Lizard

[Nahm]

@Happy Lizard

Well, ya, and others & relating to the world are like ‘colors’, ‘words’, ‘objects’, etc. 

[Inliytened1]

On 9/22/2021 at 3:39 PM, DocWatts said:

So yes color is something that is experienced rather than a pre-given feature of objects in an external world. But it's also important to keep in mind that it is an interaction, not something that the mind fabricates on its own independent of any input, owing to the fact that the mind is inherently embodied.

Red is RED.  There is no experiencer.  It is itself.   

[Inliytened1]

On 9/21/2021 at 8:07 PM, Holygrail said:

right now, the only way that i realize that red is irreducible is because the configuration of atoms supposedly equivalent to the experience of red cannot be reduced to those atoms because there's no red in those atoms! red is red, and it feels like magic!

Notice that is still a story you are spinning although you do intuit it.....it just has to click one day that Red is Red.. Atoms are part of the story.