[58] "It looks to us as if we were saying something about the nature of red in saying that the words 'Red exists' do not yield a sense. Namely that red does exist 'in its own right'. The same idea--that this is a metaphysical statement about red--finds expression again when we say such a thing as that red is timeless, and perhaps more strongly in the word 'indestructible'."

The question here is in what sense does red exist. Is red a quality of things or is it an aspect of description? What does it mean to say "Mars is red"? We're pretty sure--given our instruments & our mathematics--that Mars itself exists, so what might be the problem in asserting that "Mars is the red planet"? Wittgenstein seems to suggest that the red to which we refer is . . . linguistic in nature, but how can that be? Mars is red: on a night when the planet is visible I can go outside & determine this fact for myself.