“Nearly everybody nowadays accepts the 'causal completeness of physics' - every physical event (or at least its probability) has a full physical cause. This leaves no room for non-physical things to make a causal difference to physical effects. But it would be absurd to deny that thoughts and feelings (and population movements and economic depressions . . .) cause physical effects. So they must be physical things.” FeelingsWould BeCausesDifferencesRoomsAcceptingEconomicEffectsEventsMovementPopulationDenyPhysicsAbsurdProbabilityThoughts And FeelingsCompletenessPhysical ThingsEconomic Depression Author:David Papineau
“The orthodox view of colour experience assumes that, when we see a colour difference between two surfaces viewed side-by-side, this is because we have different responses to each of the two surfaces viewed singly. Since we can detect colour differences between something like ten million different surfaces, this implies that we are capable of ten million colour responses to surfaces viewed singly.” TwoDifferentSidesDifferencesViewsMillionsTenCapableAssumingResponseSurfaceColourOrthodox Author:David Papineau
“I don't think that we are capable of anything like this many possible colour responses. Instead I argue that the perception of colour differences between two surfaces viewed side-by-side is a gestalt phenomenon.” ThinkingTwoSidesDifferencesPerceptionCapableResponseSurfaceArguingColourPhenomenonGestalt Author:David Papineau
“There is a brain mechanism that works to identify colour differences directly, without first identifying the absolute colour of each surface. So on my view there is no reason to suppose anything like ten million colour responses to surface viewed singly.” FirstsReasonDifferencesViewsBrainMillionsTenAbsolutesResponseSurfaceColourNo ReasonMechanismIdentifying Author:David Papineau
“If neuroscientific research shows that those mechanisms only contain comparative information about colour differences, and have 'thrown away' more fine-grained information about the absolute colours of single surfaces, then that would support my position, in a way that just introspecting our colour experiences can't.” IfsWayShowsDifferencesSupportInformationPositionFineResearchAbsolutesSurfaceColourThrownMechanismScientific Research Author:David Papineau
