Yeah, between two known colours or hues there’s a new colour.
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You are actually describing Hume’s framework rather than challenging it. If you see a new colour and can then think it, that proves the point entirely. The impression precedes the idea. The argument was never that new experiences are impossible, it was that conception cannot outrun experience. You have to see it first, youre basically agreeing with me here
Nobody denied that novel combinations are possible. The essay explicitly acknowledges this. Originality is unexpected combination. But combination is not creation from nothing. A new colour mixed from existing colours is not a genuinely new colour, it is a new position on a spectrum you already inhabit, the parts determine the range of possible outputs, yyou cannot combine red and blue and arrive at something that was never in either of them
dude a colour between two known colours is not a new colour, it is an interpolation, you are filling a gap within a range you already perceive, the entire visible spectrum is already available to human eyes, every shade between red and violet is already experienceable. Finding a midpoint between two hues you know is the definition of recombination, which is precisely what the essay said imagination does. The question was about a colour entirely outside that spectrum, outside any prior impression whatsoever, something your eyes have never transacted with and your mind therefore cannot conceive
Good, until tabula rasa…
One cannot get more out of things than he already knows.
I think you’re equivocating.
This shows how the visible spectrum appears to individuals with different visual systems:
Now consider that what is labelled “normal vision” should more accurately be labelled “trichromacy”, and that other animals (and even some humans) have tetrachromacy. Just as those with trichromacy see more colours than those with protanopia, those with tetrachromacy see more colours than those with trichromacy.
Can you imagine what colours the tetrachromat sees? Can those with protanopia imagine what colours those with “normal vision” see (e.g. red)?
Couldn’t we evolve to become aware of new frequencies of light? Maybe past red, there’s another color. If it was through an abrupt mutation, it might not work because the mutant wouldn’t have anybody to talk to about what she’s seeing. If it was genetic drift, it might develop across a big enough population that speech and ideation could accompany it.
Sure, or Locke before him. It’s just standard modern empiricism.
Why not?
When an artist mixes paints the product is often unexpected.
That’s an ontological claim, not an epistemological claim. We can get new things from non-new parts because we do not know “what is in each of the parts.”
For the record, neither Hume nor later commentators on Hume thought this was no big deal. The Missing Shade of Blue - Wikipedia
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If the observer didn’t think of it before, then it’s a new colour, no matter how it was achieved.
There is no gap. The visible spectrum is continuous, so if you can think of two colours next to each other, then you can always think of a third between them that you haven’t thought of before. That’s how you can think of a new colour.
To perceive a range of colours is a slightly different topic than to think of a new colour. But we can substitute think with perceive. Between two perceived ranges there’s a third you have never perceived before.
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again this actually proves the essay. The protanope cant imagine red not because red doesnt exist but because they never received that impression. The tetrachromat sees more because they have more equipment to receive more. In both cases the impression precedes the idea. You didntt find an exception you’ve found the clearest possible illustration of the rule, and im talking about TOTALLY new colours, not a shade of an existing colour, a colour that doesnt exist on earth or the galaxy or as far as our telescopes can see
thats an interesting thought tbh but yeah that concedes the whole argument. You are saying we would need to physically evolve new sensory equipment before we could perceive it. The impression still has to come before the idea
Fair distinction, but it doesnt touch the epistemological claim. Even if purple is genuinely emergent and not secretly contained in red or blue, you still needed to see red and blue first before you could combine them and arrive at purple. The ontological novelty of the result doesnt change the fact that the inputs were sensory impressions you received. You cant mix colours you have never seen, im talking about colours that we havent seen yet or exists on earth or as far as we can see into the universe, something that never crossed our field of vision or senses
Hume raised that himself and considered it a limited exception that doesnt damage the general principle, interpolating within a known range is not the same as conceiving outside it entirely, th missing shade sits between impressions you already have, a genuinely new colour has no such neighbours
thats defining newness as personal novelty rather than genuine novelty, bby that standard a colour is new every time you see it after forgetting it th question was about a colour with no prior impression anywhere in human experience, not just one you personally havent consciously attended to before
Well, when I spoke of “digital media” I was thinking of tools like this one. This allows us to “mix” colors we have never seen. I just move my mouse randomly within the specified area and a new color appears. I could even write the code for that utility without knowing what colors will be displayed.
Which would be imagining a new colour…
I think impressions and ideas are usually fused. That’s important for memory. In other words, if you had the impression, but no words to put to it, it would tend to slip out of consciousness, or you’d make up a metaphor to explain it, constructed out of an existing cache of ideas.
The new color and the new ideas associated with it would have to go together, maybe evolving over centuries.
Did you see my post about Meno’s paradox?
But that moves, massively your goal post.
Humans have the ability to imagine colours they have not seen. Not that no human has ever seen - we do not have a collective memory of colour.
We can still see it in nature and space as far as we can see, when I say new colour I mean an absolutely new colour, not a shade or a variation, from that link you sent, imagine a colour outside the circle
you are right that imagination is personal, not collective eeach person is limited to their own received impressions, which makes the constraint even tighter than I initially framed it, you cant imagine a colour you personally have never seen, full stop, th collective point about what no human has ever seen is a separate and bigger claim that the essay doesnt actually need. the core argument stands at the individual level, your imagination is a closed system built entirely from what your own senses gave you. You cannot think outside that inventory regardless of what other people have or havent seen
hopefully that clears it up