Color Afterimages as Filtered Perception of External Physical Colors

Color afterimages have often been considered an example of phenomenal experience that is ontologically independent from objective physical properties instantiated in the external environment. As a result, color afterimages have been presented as evidence of the psychological nature of colors. In contrast with this tradition, I will address color afterimages from a radically externalist perspective according to which colors are not the outcome of internal computational processes, but rather external physical properties that exist relative to our body. This hypothesis is coherent with a performative view of colors where the executive and motor components of behavior are key factors that single out the physical properties that are identical with one’s experience. I will present empirical evidence in support of this view.