in the first video of this series we

discussed some basic elements of color

science today we're going to turn to the
philosophy of color and the central
question for us is what exactly is color
when we look at the world it certainly
seems as though objects have colors it
seems as though object as though colors
are straightforward properties of
objects a grass is green a banana is
yellow yellowness is a property of the
banana like its mass or starch content
well I hope that one of the things you
will have learned from the first video
is that things aren't as simple as that
so there's quite a lot of room for
philosophical debate here now there are
essentially
three families of views
first of all
realism according to color
realism objects have colors objectively
color is that the property of color is
independent of the human mind it exists
you know in the external world
objectively and a significant portion of
our color perceptions are political so
when we say grass is green this is true
it's true because grass has the property
of green --less and it would have this
property even if no humans or other
sentient animals had ever been around to
see it there are essentially two types
of realism :
reductionism and primitivism

according to the reductionist “color can

be identified with some standard
physical property the view that colors
are wavelengths of light is a
reductionist view wavelengths of light
are our physical properties will be
discussing reductionism in detail in
this video

primitivism holds the colors

are irreducible properties so colors
colors exist in the external world but
we can't identify them with some other
property colors just are exactly how
they appear they exist in some sense
over and above the physical properties
that might seem a bit confusing but
we'll look at that more closely in the
next video second anti-realism
anti-realism is the claim that colors do
not exist in the external world nothing
out there is colored
so immediately the vast majority of our
color judgments are going to be wrong
grass is not green bananas are not rip
actually yellow so one option is to say
that colors are properties of the mind
there perhaps properties of scents data
or something like that which we project
onto the world more strongly we might
hold the colors simply don't exist at
all color is just a massive illusion and
this is color eliminative ISM it may be
worth noting th a
t the anti-realism is
probably the most popular view among
color scientists when you hear
scientists talk about color they will
often say either that colors don't exist
all the colors are just subjective
properties of the mind they're not
properties of objects

third relation ISM

relation ism tries to find a middle path
between realism and anti-realism
basically the claim is that colors are
real properties and they're not just
products of the mind but also that they
can't be defined completely
independently of observers so the
simplest version of relation ISM is

dispositional ISM according to which

colors are dispositions to cause certain
kinds of experiences something is red
just in case it looks red or causes a
distinctively reddish sort of experience
in normal observers in normal conditions
so standard comparison here is to
something like poisons something is a
poison just in case it tends to cause
illness when ingested poisonous and
poisonous is a relational property it's
a matter of how a particular substance
interact with an organism
so it's you
know it depends on that that relational
interaction between the organism and the
substance

so we're
going to start off with realism
specifically reductionism
I think reductionism is initially
probably the most sort of obvious theory
of the lot of them
as a form of color realism it's in line
with common sense because color does
indeed seem to be a mind independent
property objects appear to us as though
they are colored and it looks as though
we can be right or wrong about color
grass is green not red somebody says
grass is red they're just wrong if they
said it's green it's that they're
correct an important point here is that
changes in color track real changes in
objects if I dunk my hand in hot water
it will go red if I have a mole that
starts changing color or I noticed that
my legs have gone blue that tells me I
need to see a doctor and we can exploit
colors in various sorts of ways as when
animals use colors to camouflage
themselves from predators so so
initially realism seems like a the kind
of initial position
reductionism
specifically is very much in line with
the naturalistic scientific approach
that most philosophers these days favor
there's nothing spooky or Supernatural
about color it's a standard physical
property it's just like mass or charge
or whatever
so certainly this
reductionist brand of realism is an
initially attractive position okay so a

simple form of reductionism is to say

that colors are wavelengths of light
you're something you maybe sometimes
hear scientists say this you know
they'll say redness is just like waves
in the longer wavelengths of the visible
spectrum
I don't think this is very
popular among philosophers there are
many problems but then the central
difficulty here is
color constancy which
we discussed in the last video you can
classify objects as having the same
colors ear under significant changes in
illumination it's a central feature of
our visual system that colors are mostly
preserved under different illuminance
the colors you see under daylight are
basically the same as the colors you see
under tungsten light maybe some
differences but there there is very very
similar but the wavelengths reaching
your eyes are very different

so
constancy suggests that colors are
illumination independent you know
assuming that colors are mind
independent properties they are
presumably properties that attach to
objects and don't change as the
illumination changes
our visual system
is able to track these these properties
and they remain stable even as the
illumination changes
so the wavelengths
reaching our eyes are going to be very
different when you look at an object
under daylight and when you look at an
object under tungsten light but it's
going the object will probably look to
have the same color so it's difficult to
identify colors with wavelengths of
light
I should also notice that an odd
consequence of this form of reductionism
is that actually most color statements
are false so it's not obvious that this
is a form of realism at all if I say for
instance grass is green well actually
that's false because grass isn't the
kind of thing that can have color you
know grass to say that grass is green is
really just a category error grass
reflects green light into our eyes it's
the light that's green not the grass

similarly this view entails that when

the lights are switched off it's not
just that you can't see the colors
anymore the colors literally disappear
so again that's that's rather odd and
it's not entirely it's not clear to me
that that's really a kind of realism
because realism realism would be it
would entail that most color judgments
are true
but as I said I mean the main
the main problem with this view is I
think color constancy so perhaps

a more
plausible version of reductionism is
proposed by Alex Byrne and David Hilbert
in their article color realism and color
science it's kind of a technical article
but it's very good and it's freely
available on the internet so you could
go and go and read that if you want to
if you want they suggest that
we
identify colors with surface spectral
reflectance --is the spectral
reflectance of a surface is the
proportion of light reflected as a
function of the wavelength of
light
so we can graph surface spectral
reflectance is like this this shows a
variety of spectral reflectance errs so
this this line here this sort of darker
gray line is a lemon and you can see
that it reflects very little light in
the short wavelengths as we would expect
because those shorter wavelengths are
associated with blue quite a lot of
light in the medium and long wavelengths
you recall from the last video that the
medium and long wavelength cones combine
their input to make the yellow channel
so so so that kind of makes sense for
that's what you'd expect from from
eleven lemons a yellow and you know you
can see that here this slightly lighter
gray line is a marigold or an orange as
you can see that's shifted to the longer
wavelengths as you'd expect because
oranges and marigolds are redder than
lemons so that's fairly simple

now unquestionably SPECT surface

spectral reflectance ha's are properties
of objects they are objective they are
their mind independent and furthermore
they're compatible with color constancy
if you take a lemon and put it under
different illuminance it will reflect
different wavelengths but its surface
spectral reflectance remains the same
because the spectral reflectance is
defined for all wavelengths
so this this
is sort of what what we were what the
kind of property that we're looking for
we wanted something that is compatible
with with color constancy with the way
that colors remain the same under
different luminance and surface spectral
reflectance 'iz provides just that
recall also that one of the points were
made in the first video was that two
things can have very different colors
despite significant physical
similarities emeralds and rubies where
the example I gave well spectral
reflectance ha's provide a neat solution
because if two objects have different
colors under the same illumination they
must have different spectral reflectance
ha's so so this this is the physical
difference that explains why
two seemingly similar objects appear
differently colored right why two
objects which have the same or at least
very similar physical structures will
appear to have totally different colors
it's because their spectral reflectance
is a totally different so that's the
physical difference that explains that

now obviously the spectral reflectance

azar only half the story as we saw in
the first video color arises through a
variety of processes but we can
generalize the theory we can talk about
surface spectral product ensues and this
is the proportion of light reflected or
transmitted or emitted as a function of
the wavelength of incident light so the
spectral surface product ins is
basically just a matter of the the
lights coming off the object however it
may have interacted with the object as a
function of the wavelength of incident
light I'll continue to talk about
reflectances because it's easier and
simpler but keep in mind that the theory
can and must be generalized so so burnin
Hilbert's proposal is that colors are
surface spectral product answers and for
the standard opaque objects that's going
to be surface spectral reflectance okay
so that's that that's the basic theory

let's turn to some problems what a

significant challenge to reductionism is
posed by metamerism we mentioned
metamerism briefly in the last video our
three types of cones make for a very
coarse color detection system two types
of light of a very different physical
composition can produce the same
response so we say that colored lights
are met immers if they are perceptually
indistinguishable but differ in their
spectral composition for instance pure
577 nanometers light will appear yellow
light that's 50% 540 nanometers and 50%
7 670 nanometers will be totally
indistinguishable it will appear the
same yellow
similarly reflective objects are meta
Murs if they match under a given
aluminum but differ in their spec
reflectances and the differences can be
significant here's a graph for graphs
showing four spectral reflectance curves
that are indistinguishable under
daylight these all appear to be yellow
under daylight very very different so
some meta Murs match under a very wide
range of illuminance but they can differ
significantly in their spectral profiles
so the question is how exactly can we
identify colors with spectral
reflectance 'as if the same color can
have completely different spectral
reflectance 'iz
so one initial option is
simply to hold that meta Murs are in
fact different colors colors are
spectral reflectance --is two
indistinguishable yellows have totally
different reflectances so those two
yellows are in fact different colors
bear in mind that if we accept color
realism if we accept that colors are
mined independent properties it really
shouldn't be surprising that we're not
able to distinguish colors perfectly no
perceptual system is perfect indeed in
general note that some people seem to
have better color discrimination than
others two people will fail to see the
differences between hues of hues of the
same color that others can clearly
distinguish you know one person will
look at two different hues of the same
color and be unable to distinguish them
whereas somebody else will look at them
and easily distinguish them similarly
people have different abilities to
distinguish slightly different levels of
saturation so we can we often call two
colors yellow while still recognizing
that they're actually different now one
of the worries about this response is
that it's not simply a question of
failing to discriminate closely related
colors you might look at two yellows and
fail to see any difference between them
because they're so similar that's no
problem because we can specify what
unites them namely they're both yellow
the problem of metamerism is that two
indistinguishable yellows could have
totally different surface spectral
reflectance --is so if color just is
surface spectral reflectance we have to
say that these two yellows are in fact
totally different colors it's not simply
that they're different shades of the
same color like mid yellow in a slightly
darker yellow it's rather like the
differences the difference between
yellow and purple and so then the
question is I mean what does this view
have to do with the colors that we
believe in I mean there's a worry that
this is really just a kind of disguised
anti-realism because on this view most
of our beliefs about colors most of our
perceptions about colors are wrong or at
least radically incomplete so this I
think a lot of people are going to want
to resist going down this kind of route
a

second option the one favored by

Vernon Hilbert is disjunctive ISM so
this is the idea that colors are to be
identified with disjunctive sets of
spectral reflectance 'as we say that for
instance red is property a or property B
or property C or property D etc and then
we fill out that list with by listing
all the spectral reflectance a--'s that
appear red to us so groups of spectral
reflectance 'iz are determined by their
effect on the visual system i mean bear
in mind that we would have to say this
anyway
because there are many Reds right some
Reds are more yellowish some are more
bluish so we would have to group
spectral reflectance as together like
this anyway of course the initial hope
might have been that these reflectances
would at least all be similar so all the
red reflectances are similar and all the
green reflectances are similar and so on
metamerism forces us to create very odd
collections of reflectances recall the
meta mas' for yellow that we saw in in
last in our slide right they don't
appear initially to have anything to do
with each other so we have to create
disjunctive sets that's a or B or C or
etc
Behrman Hilbert call this
anthropocentric realism
its
anthropocentric because the reduction is
carried out with respect to the
reactions of human perceivers that's how
we determine the sets of reflex answers
nevertheless is still a form of realism
because the reducing properties are
still mind independent properties
if we
take some set of spectral reflectance
--iz and they all look red to us well I
mean this set is completely
uninteresting from the point of view of
physics in in purely physical terms it's
a it's just an arbitrary collection but
that doesn't mean it's not real it
doesn't mean it's not mine independent
just because it's arbitrary redness is
this set of reflectances redness is the
set of reflectances that that that
appear red to us anything that has one
of those reflectances is red and that's
a mind independent property because the
reflectances our mind independent so
although we have to consider the
reactions of human perceivers in order
to specify the set of reflectances the
reflectances themselves are mind
independent and objective so this is
still a form of realism

or so Berlin
Hill would say but I personally I can't
help but feel there's something kind of
weaselly about this kind of argument so
so one objection is well look the set of
reflectances for each color is just
going to look completely gerrymander at
an arbitrary so it's true that for each
reflectance taken individually that
reflectance is mind-independent okay
each individual reflectance is mine
independent and objective but the only
thing that unites them as a group is the
effect they have on human perceivers
there is no mind independent unifier
metamerism means that the reduction in
scare quotes the reduction of color to
physical properties can only be carried
out by reference to the idiosyncratic
mechanisms of human perception
so I
guess one way to put this point is in
terms of prediction right for some new
physical property X for some previously
unseen spectral reflectance X does X
belong in the red disjunct or in the
yellow
disjunct well the only way to answer
that is to ask how it would affect human
perceivers so the worry here is that
we're just giving up realism at this
point this is really a kind of kind of
dispositional ism or relation ism this
is not a realism because you know
there's there's no way of specifying
these sets of reflectances without
appealing to the mechanisms of human
color perception so and 4% Rick realizes
to collapse into some sort of relational
view like dispositional ISM and this
leads us neatly to a second objection
even if anthropocentric realism doesn't
ultimately collapse into dispositional
ISM it still faces many of the same
problems as dispositional ism now I'll
deal with these problems when I come to
the video on relational views but just
to give a brief example here
anthropocentric realism requires us to
specify normal observers and normal
conditions because
human color
perception is not just one thing
different people even different people
who are considered to have perfectly
good color vision will see colors
differently there's a wide range of
variance in color perception for
instance what appears unique greens one
observer may be identified as having a
distinctly yellowish component by
another observer there are gender
differences objects that women identify
as a cream color men are more likely to
identify as white and of course even a
single individual will see colors
differently in different contexts so
burnin Hilbert want to specify their
disjunctive sets of spectral reflectance
'as in terms of the effects on the human
visual system but those effects are
going to be different for different
people as I said I won't go into detail
on this here but you can see we're
burnin hilbert are going to start to run
into difficulties because the question
is going to be well how exactly do we
specify what counts as a normal observer
how do we specify what counts as a
normal condition and that that that's
very difficult
again I'll look at that in the video and
dispositional ISM but when we get to
that just bear in mind that
anthropocentric realism is going to face
many of the same problems a

third
objection is that anthropocentric
realism can consider color perception
only as it pertains to humans presumably
other species can see colors so we would
want our color theory to apply to all
species but if colors are just
disjunctive sets of reflectance profiles
specified by the effects they have on
the human visual system it would seem to
follow that species with different
visual systems don't see colors or at
least they're massively mistaken about
what colors are
I mean in any case we're
certainly going to run into problems if
we try to talk about different species
seeing colors in fact this is a problem
even for other humans many humans are
colorblind
they are dichromats but we assume that
they still see some colors they
obviously they can't identify the same
sets of reflectances that normal people
can and this is I mean it's particularly
this becomes particularly odd when you
consider that there are some people who
are dichromatic in one eye and
trichromatic in the other they certainly
think that they can see colors using
both eyes but initially at least it
seems that this theory entails that they
don't see any colors at all through the
diaphragmatic eye but they do see colors
through the trichromatic eye so so
that's a bit of a problem now

one
possible attempt to extend the theory to
other species and to colorblind humans
would be to define different sets of
spectral reflectance 'iz as different
colors beyond what normal humans can see
so each species sees different colors
each species has a different collection
of sets of spectral reflectance 'as for
instance dogs see the reflectances a b c
and d is a color humans see a and b is
one color and c and d as another so yeah
ABCD that's that's one color a b is
another color C D is another color now
notice that this means that the same
reflectances can have different colors
indeed on on this view
every object has an infinite number of
colors reflectance B for instance is
part of the set a B it's part of the set
ABCD it's part of a set B F is air
de-spawn set b HJ k and so on now it
counts as red because it's part of the
set that has you know the appropriate
effects on the human visual system it so
it counts as red because it's part of
the set a B Saye but it's also part of
infinitely many other sets and hence it
counts as infinitely many other colors
which seems a bit odd
it's a slightly
bizarre result but I'll discuss this
kind of view a little bit more in the
next video but immediately this this
looks rather rather odd an interesting
suggestion from Paul Churchland is that
in fact there is an underlying physical
property that unites the meta,urs in
two sets that correspond to the colors
we see this is disgusting churchians
article on the reality and diversity of
objective colors to actually points out
that when we represent spectral
reflectance profiles we portray them as
now so like this in
other words we that's that's the normal
way of representing spectral reflectance
profiles so we have the color spectrum
here we have kind of violet I don't know
if you can see that it hasn't come out
so well in my photo but it's sort of
violet all the way to red now notice
that each end of the color spectrum
tends towards purple doesn't quite get
there purple is a non spectral color no
single wavelength of light will appear
purple but if we were to kind of extend
this naturally in each direction we
would fade into purple either way after
the red comes purple like a violet we
get purple so here's an idea let's take
this spectral reflectance graph okay and
roll it into a cylinder
because as you can see the spectrum here
fades into purple either way so that
suggests we could join the ends right
and we can do the same then with this
graph okay we so we roll it into a
cylinder and connect the four hundred
nanometer and 700 nanometer ends and as
you see here's church's representation
of this cylinder right so we take the
raf roll it into a cylinder
now what we
can do now is approximate the
reflectance curve by making an imaginary
cut through the cylinder essentially a
line of best fit generating an ellipse
this is shown here again so we take this
kind of line of best fit by making a cut
through the cylinder and that generates
an ellipse inside the cylinder this
ellipse is an approximation of the
spectral reflectance curve churchmen
calls this ellipse
the canonical
approximation of the spectral
reflectance curve every spectral
reflectance has a canonical
approximation economical approximations
are objective features we can specify
these canonical approximations without
making reference to the human visual
system as you can see I've just done it
there right we didn't have to talk about
the human visual system in order to make
this ellipse so Churchland says these
are just straightforward objective
properties of spectral reflectance
curves now
these ellipses have three
features they have the the altitude of
the center point so the center is I
guess it's somewhere around here the
altitude how high that center point is
second the tilt angle so this is the
degree to which the ellipse is tilted
away from the horizontal so the you know
horizontal ellipse would just be
straight on like that whereas this is
tilted quite high so this is quite a
kind of high tilt angle third the
rotational position so where on the
cylinder is the ellipses highest point
it's kind of difficult to see on this
picture but I think the highest point of
this ellipse is somewhere between the
550 nanometers to
600 nanometers or 55 and 60 in church
men's units
now these three features
correspond to three important features
of color altitude represents the total
energy it corresponds to brightness and
darkness you know that the higher the
ellipse the brighter the color is tilt
corresponds to saturation this is how
vivid how strong the color is so a
completely D saturated image it would
just be black and white as you increase
the saturation that it strengthens the
colors rotational position corresponds
to hue is it red yellow green or what so
this is all represented in this image
which is fairly complicated I suppose
but you can you can see that we have the
altitude that's the center point the
tilt angle is how much it's tilted and
the rotational position is the position
of the highest point of the ellipse on
the cylinder and we can associate these
three features with features of color
space hope that's fairly clear
so here are two meta Murs for green a
dark dull green now we can roll each of
these into a cylinder and work out the
ellipse for each one attraction
calculates the ellipse for the dotted
line is having an altitude of 14% a tilt
angle of 17% and a rotational position
of 520 nanometers the other line Church
and calculates the altitude at 13% a
tilt angle of 16% in a rotational
position of 535 nanometers so they're
not exactly the same but the difference
is in minor so it would seem reasonable
to class these as the same color
and if we assume that altitude is
brightness well we can see that these
have a low altitude so these are quite
dark
if tilt angle is saturation again these
have a low tilt angle so these would be
dull and if a rotational position is
Hieu we would expect these in to be in
the middle of the spectrum so we'd
expect these to be green
so we have a dark dull greenish color
which is exactly how these colors appear
these as we said these are two metals
for dark dull green so that seems pretty
promising I simply find Church nuns
account somewhat here but I hope you get
the idea I think that the basic concept
is pretty simple so let's

consider a
couple of worries for church planters
account first
Ralph Sheheen II and si el jardín argue
that Church linens canonical
approximations just get the color wrong
for many metals here are the spectral
reflectance curves for three metameric
Gray's the dotted line is gray number
one the unbroken line here is great
number two and the unbroken line in the
second image is gray number three now
when we work out the ellipses for these
Gray's it identifies gray one as a
medium gray color gray two is a bluish
green and gray three as a yellowish red
color but as I said they are all meta
mmus for great they all appear the same
gray so it seems that the canonical
approximations simply get the expected
color wrong in these cases the canonical
approximation simply don't match the
color that we perceive Queenie and
Hardin also give some examples of
metameric yellows that are incorrectly
predicted by the economical
approximations
so this is certainly a
problem maybe Churchland could respond
that the perceptual system isn't perfect
right we're able to track canonical
approximations but we can't do it
perfectly there are some cases where the
canonical approximation doesn't match
the perceived color and I suppose that's
not too surprising perception is very
rough around the edges
in most cases the altitude tilt angle
and rotational position of the ellipse
matches the brightness saturation and
hue of the perceived color it doesn't do
it in all cases but it's good enough
that it does it in most cases that still
counts in most cases we
we get a match the

second objection from

Wainwright is that Churchland has simply
performed a matter map mathematical
operation on reflect on reflectance
curves and the resulting canonical
approximations as he calls them do line
up fairly neatly although as we saw not
perfectly with color phenomenology but
what exactly is the physical
significance of these canonical
approximations what of these ellipses
what is the physical significance of
them I mean we could perform all kinds
of mathematical operations on spectral
reflectance curves to to generate sort
of new mathematical objects so to quote
write he says for example one could
redraw the two-dimensional plot of
reflectance between 400 and 700
nanometers by taking at each wavelength
the cube root of reflectance and
multiplying that by the square of the
surfaces reflectance at the wavelength
that is the same absolute distance from
550 nanometers but in the direction
along the x axis from the wavelength in
question so you know just a very
complicated operation white right
continues the results of any such
operations would surely be objective in
some sense but few if any would find a
home in physical theory
in other words
not just any mathematical construction
is going to be interesting from a
physical point of view it's going to be
used in physics in physical theory in
general
so why do canonical
approximations matter but other
mathematical operations such as writes
operation don't matter and why do we
take canonical approximations rather
than some other mathematical operation
its correspond to color
well because canonical approximations
end up matching the phenomenology of
color vision Churchland claims that
canonical approximations provide a way
of unifying metamours without reference
to human color vision but
the only
reason to associate that mathematical
operation with color is that it is that
this is the mathematical operation that
produces results that match human color
phenomenology certainly no scientist
cares
about canonical approximations they're
just they've just been invented by
Churchland to save color realism so
judgment claims that canonical
approximations are
objective properties of the spectral
reflectance curves but you know that's
not that's not really true I mean
they're they're a kind of mathematical
transformation of the reflectance curve
they're no more or less objective than
any other result of a mathematical
transformation
now if the only reason to
talk about canonical approximations is
that they provide a way of unifying meta
Murs in a way that corresponds to human
perception then we might wonder is is
this really objective after all I mean
the only reason why we're going with
this mathematical operation is that it
produces results that correspond to
human color perception but if you forget
about human color perception and ask you
know what sort of mathematical operation
should we perform on meta Murs to unify
them well there are all sorts of
mathematical operations we could perform
on on these reflectance curves to unify
them and they would be unified in all
sorts of different ways the only reason
we the only reason Church and goes for
this way is because this this is the way
that agrees with human perception so you
know is this objective or is perhaps
Churchland smuggling in a kind of mind
dependence is he smuggling in a sort of
subjective element rather like the
anthropocentric realism of burnin
Hilbert and so maybe that's something to
think about

a third objection is that different

surfaces are meta Mo's under different
conditions indeed it
doesn't really make
sense to talk about meta Murs
independently of a specification of the
kind of illumination to surfaces that
match under one illumination will be
different distinguishable under another
now Churchland assumes basically that
we're dealing with with meta misunder
daylight during mid-day so we're looking
at meta modes that match under the
midday Sun so what what unifies meta
Mo's or canonical approximations and we
canonical approximations under daylight
but the question is why exactly should
daylight during mid-day be taken as
standard why not tungsten lights why not
pure 537 an enemy to light
why not sunlight at dusk or dawn in
these cases the meta murmurs will be
different so Churchland method of
unifying messages will be will be less
effective in these conditions