The question is dangerously close to being rhetorical. Maybe an analogy can explain why. I think you believe you are asking something ala "Is a steering wheel necessary for driving?", but what I am seeing is "Is a driver is necessary for driving?"

Before I bother to continue, I will ask you a simple question... the answer to which determines if there is any point for me in actually replying. The question might seem silly, but is actually quite serious:

Ok, and weve already been through the fact that "red" is not your experience of red, and we both know it.

You aren't really making much sense. You must certainly have understood that I disagree with you by now, so using "we", "fact", "both" and "know" as connected terms in your post is just nonsense.

Secondly you have asked me to describe my experience of red, the answer to that is "red". You are (hopefully) aware that "red" is a description?

I don't know exactly what you mean by all this, but I don't think we are in danger of rhetoric. Can a rock experience something? Well no, it has no mind, but we are also redefining the definition of experience here, not that a rock will be our new definition, but we are going to challenge the way we view experience.

But my question is simple, when our eyes (therefore brain) sees the color red, can it just register it, or does thought need to take place 'I see red' and then we see red.

I think not, and I wonder if you might agree, but want to make sure. Or, for example, if someone quickly throws a ball at me, do I need to think about catching it first, or is there a possibility of a natural reaction to catch the ball without thought.

This is all I want to do, is remove thought from the experience. And to suggest thought itself is an experience separate from red. Not only is it not needed to see red, but it also become a barrier from the 'actual' experience of red.

So for your current debate about your description of your experience, you are fine to say 'red' but we must simply admit a division between your experience and your description of it. Not that your description of red is wrong (it is your experience and your description), but that they cannot possibly be the same thing.

So in this way, if someone shows me a drawing of stairs, then I see that drawing without any past history or conceived notions of what that drawing is. I'll simply just see it, without actually naming it, for what it actually is (stairs).

Do you believe this way of looking at things is different from your explanation, and do you believe its possible? Can we have an experience without thought? Do we believe the description is not the described (this one is obvious though I think).

The rock is important because it establishes a baseline, that we agree that there is a point at which there is no mind. We might disagree where this point is, but that is another issue.

As for the question: Your eyes don't see the color red. The color you see in your mind is a description, just like the word "red" is a description. As far as we know it is formed by synapses, or "cells talking to each other".

How you see it is in part formed via your mind. Could you potentially react to stimuli (whatever it might be) that causes you to see the color red, even if you had no part of the brain that could convey conscious thought?

Yes, you could.

Extremely simply stated, the brain consists of four stages. The vertebrate brain, the mammalian brain, the primate brain and the hominid brain. Even if we "removed" the latter three stages and left you with a "lizard brain", you would still mantain regions that could hypothetically respond to the same stimuli - I say hypothetically, because in the real world you would (of course) be dead.

However... and this is the key point; You would not experience it in the same manner. If that had been the case, we would have seen far more lizards deeply impressed by rainbows.

Relevant pic from the Singularity Institute. Note that the "qualia" switch does nothing.

Yes we might but we might not need to define it.


I think so too.


This though, I'd like to go into, why would we be dead in the real world from experience this or that without thought?

I agree here too, it would be different, and I certainly can't say its 'better' or more 'red' of an experience. But I think it can be done, and I think its radically different.

Well, in this specific hypotetical you would be dead because you would be lacking regions of your brain that tells some parts of your body to keep on living. It isn't dreadfully important to what we are discussing however.

What is important is that you can't turn off thoughts. Your cerebral cortex is always working. This is why thoughts will always play a role in perception, because thoughts are always there.

You can certainly change experience however; For example by mentally narrowing your focus (for example via meditation), train yourself to ignore the brain's language center ("stop thinking in words") or engage in activity that changes neurotransmitter levels (go to sleep, have sex, do drugs, exercise etc etc) or change the way you reflect over phenomena (study, analyse etc etc).

Ya I think we are on the same page for a lot of this, but I think people are too quick to make assumptions.

I think we should explore the possibilities of have a daily life without thought, or at least without reflection on the past. I don't think we can just say its not possible. But some words and definitions might have to be changed. For instance I think meditation IS this thoughtless process. So sitting down to meditate, or having a posture, or a certain chant or exercise in the mind is not needed and possibly futile.

We should examine if a mind can be in this thoughtless state, what it would entail, and what it would imply. I think in our sciences and our religions we bypass this inquiry for no reason.