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Originally Posted by Mr Mephisto
MaudDib,
You are concentrating on colours as they are perceived, and I don't disagree with anything you've said so far.
However, my question is do colours exist in and of themselves? Were there no people to see tomatoes, would they still be red?
Is red anything other than a construct of our consciousness to designate certain objects that reflect particular wavelengths of light?
Maybe I'm arguing with shadows... 
Mr Mephisto |
At the point that you are talking about if there are no people to see it, we are basically down to the tree falling in the woods question only with different senses. At that point we are still talking about perception.
Red, for example, is the name we give to a certain wavelength reflected off certain objects. In that, it wouldn't be called red if we didn't name it such, yes it is a construct. But the same way that a minute passing would still go by if we humans weren't here to designate it as a minute, the light would still reflect off of a tomato at the same wavelength regardless of our being here to being here to see it and it would likely be perceived by other visual entities as the same "color" we see it as.
Does that more address what you are trying to get at or am I still shooting blanks in the dark (thats what my girlfriend calls it but we won't get into that
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