Marc Ebner - A Mathematical Model of the Quale Color

Understanding color perception is of paramount importance to the understanding of consciousness. It appears as if color is a subjective experience. Many philosophical arguments have been exchanged on the question whether or not it is possible that my perception of "red" corresponds to your perception of "red". A mathematical description will be given what the quale color is about. It does not correspond to the values that are measured by the sensors. The measured values are transformed so that they correspond to a description of the reflectance function of the object that is being viewed. If this information can be spatially localized, we obtain a color image of our surrounding. This estimate improves if more sensors are available. However, the result is still a one dimensional function irrespective of two, three or four cones are being used to obtain this estimate. Hence, color is grounded in reality and comparable across individuals. Reflectance is a measurable quantity of our environment. Even seemingly surprising results in color perception can be explained by the mathematical or rather algorithmic description of estimating the reflectance function of an object. The quale color is due to the mathematical structure of the space of reflectance.