How our brains create colors as qualia? [closed]

Question

As we know, colors as we see them don’t actually exist out there in the world, they come from how our brains understand electromagnetic wavelengths. The sun and other light sources send out electromagnetic waves with different lengths. Our eyes can pick up these wavelengths between about 380 nm and 750 nm. Any wavelengths outside this range are invisible to us.

Our eyes have special cells called cones that respond to different parts of this light range—short wavelengths look blue, medium ones look green, and long ones look red. When light hits something, it either absorbs or bounces off wavelengths. The ones that bounce off hit our eyes and activate these cones.

The brain then takes over, especially in a part called the visual cortex, where it turns these signals into what we see as colors.

Here's my question: How do our brains create colors as qualia? In programming, to assign values, both the data and the variables need to be defined. Similarly, if we think of electromagnetic wavelengths as data and perceived colors as variables, both must conceptually exist for assignment. However, if colors don’t exist objectively, how does the brain create and assign these colors? In other words, my question focuses on the origin of colors as qualia in our perception, which seems counterintuitive if colors don't physically exist in the outside world.

Answer 1

There is no answer to the question why a certain wavelength results in the perception of color. For example - we know that red color is nothing but brain’s interpretation of electromagnetic wave of 700 nm wavelength. But we dont know why we experience “red” and not some other feeling or no feeling at all. We dont know how electric signal gets converted into the color “red”. This is called the hard problem of consciousness.

Some solutions to the problem is offered by assuming one of the following positions :

1. Dualism: Mind and matter are seperate.
2. Panpsychism : consciousness is fundamental to all.
3. Integrated Information theory : consciousness arises from the integration of information within a system.
4. Advaita theory: Consciousness is all there is.