Color & Consciousness: BBS Call for Commentators

Below is the abstract of a forthcoming BBS target article (see also 4 important announcements about new BBS policies at the end of this message) COLOR, CONSCIOUSNESS, AND THE ISOMORPHISM CONSTRAINT by Stephen E. Palmer This article has been accepted for publication in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal providing Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. Commentators must be BBS Associates or nominated by a BBS Associate. To be considered as a commentator for this article, to suggest other appropriate commentators, or for information about how to become a BBS Associate, please send EMAIL to: bbs(a)cogsci.soton.ac.uk or write to: Behavioral and Brain Sciences ECS: New Zepler Building University of Southampton Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/ http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/ ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/ ftp://ftp.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/pub/bbs/ gopher://gopher.princeton.edu:70/11/.libraries/.pujournals If you are not a BBS Associate, please send your CV and the name of a BBS Associate (there are currently over 10,000 worldwide) who is familiar with your work. All past BBS authors, referees and commentators are eligible to become BBS Associates. To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, please give some indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring your areas of expertise to bear if you were selected as a commentator. An electronic draft of the full text is available for inspection with a WWW browser, anonymous ftp or gopher according to the instructions that follow after the abstract. _____________________________________________________________ COLOR, CONSCIOUSNESS, AND THE ISOMORPHISM CONSTRAINT Stephen E. Palmer Psychology Department University of California Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 palmer(a)cogsci.berkeley.edu http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~plab ABSTRACT: The relations among consciousness, brain, behavior, and scientific explanation are explored within the domain of color perception. Current scientific knowledge about color similarity, color composition, dimensional structure, unique colors, and color categories is used to assess Locke's "inverted spectrum argument" about the undetectability of color transformations. A symmetry analysis of color space shows that the literal interpretation of this argument -- reversing the experience of a rainbow -- would not work. Three other color-to-color transformations might, however, depending on the relevance of certain color categories. The approach is then generalized to examine behavioral detection of arbitrary differences in color experiences, leading to the formulation of a principled distinction, called the isomorphism constraint, between what can and cannot be determined about the nature of color experience by objective behavioral means. Finally, the prospects for achieving a biologically based explanation of color experience below the level of isomorphism are considered in light of the limitations of behavioral methods. Within-subject designs using biological interventions hold the greatest promise for scientific progress on consciousness, but objective knowledge of another person's experience appears impossible. The implications of these arguments for functionalism are discussed. In this article I discuss the relations among mind, brain, behavior, and science in the particular domain of color perception. My reasons for approaching these difficult issues from the perspective of color experience are two-fold. First, there is long philosophical tradition of debating the nature of internal experiences of color, dating from John Locke's (1690) discussion of the so-called "inverted spectrum argument". This intuitively compelling argument constitutes an important historical backdrop for much of the article. Second, color is perhaps the most tractable, best understood aspect of mental life from a scientific standpoint. It demonstrates better than any other topic how a mental phenomenon can be more fully understood by integrating knowledge from many different disciplines (Kay & McDaniel, 1978; Thompson, 1995; Palmer, in press). In this article I turn once more to color for new insights into how conscious experience can be studied and understood scientifically. I begin with a brief description of the inverted spectrum problem as posed in classical philosophical terms. I then discuss how empirical constraints on the answer can be brought to bear in terms of the structure of human color experience as it is currently understood scientifically. This discussion ultimately leads to a principled distinction, called the isomorphism constraint, between what can and what cannot be determined about the nature of experience by objective behavioral means. Finally, I consider the prospects for achieving a biologically based explanation of color experience, ending with some speculations about limitations on what science can achieve with respect to understanding color experience and other forms of consciousness. ____________________________________________________________ To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate commentator for this article, an electronic draft is retrievable from the World Wide Web or by anonymous ftp from the US or UK BBS Archive. Ftp instructions follow below. Please do not prepare a commentary on this draft. Just let us know, after having inspected it, what relevant expertise you feel you would bring to bear on what aspect of the article. The URLs you can use to get to the BBS Archive: http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/ http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.palmer.html ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/bbs.palmer ftp://ftp.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/pub/bbs/Archive/bbs.palmer To retrieve a file by ftp from an Internet site, type either: ftp ftp.princeton.edu or ftp 128.112.128.1 When you are asked for your login, type: anonymous Enter password as queried (your password is your actual userid: yourlogin(a)yourhost.whatever.whatever - be sure to include the "@") cd /pub/harnad/BBS To show the available files, type: ls Next, retrieve the file you want with (for example): get bbs.palmer When you have the file(s) you want, type: quit ____________________________________________________________ FOUR IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------ (1) There have been some extremely important developments in the area of Web archiving of scientific papers very recently. Please see: Science: http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/science.html Nature: http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/nature.html http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/nature2.html American Scientist: http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/amlet.html Chronicle of Higher Education: http://www.chronicle.com/free/v45/i04/04a02901.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------- (2) All authors in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences are strongly encouraged to archive all their papers (on their Home-Servers as well as) on CogPrints: http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/ It is exceedingly simple to do so and will make all of our papers available to all of us everywhere at no cost to anyone. --------------------------------------------------------------------- (3) BBS has a new policy of accepting submissions electronically. Authors can specify whether they would like their submissions archived publicly during refereeing in the BBS under-refereeing Archive, or in a referees-only, non-public archive. Upon acceptance, preprints of final drafts are moved to the public BBS Archive: ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/.WWW/index.html http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/ -------------------------------------------------------------------- (4) BBS has expanded its annual page quota and is now appearing bimonthly, so the service of Open Peer Commentary can now be be offered to more target articles. The BBS refereeing procedure is also going to be considerably faster with the new electronic submission and processing procedures. Authors are invited to submit papers to: Email: bbs(a)cogsci.soton.ac.uk Web: http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk http://bbs.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/ Paper/Disk: Behavioral and Brain Sciences Department of Electronics and Computer Science New Zepler Building University of Southampton Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS: http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/instructions.for.authors.html http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/instructions.for.authors.html Nominations of books for BBS Multiple book review are also invited.