Yes. It was new to me too. The colour thing is one we can approximate with people who have lost their sight, but how to do it with those born sightless? But I have a whole other ongoing thing around colour and our inability to know what someone else sees.
By this I mean that we can both agree that grass is (assuming new growth & healthy) …
Yes. It was new to me too. The colour thing is one we can approximate with people who have lost their sight, but how to do it with those born sightless? But I have a whole other ongoing thing around colour and our inability to know what someone else sees.
By this I mean that we can both agree that grass is (assuming new growth & healthy) green. Therefore we have a certain shade that we see and agree is 'green'. By reference to it - or to other leaves, or carpets, or salad, or whatever - we agree is the colour we call green. However, I cannot know that what YOU think is green, is the same visual perception that I call green. For all we can ever know, I might be seeing something you would call blue, or purple, or brown or orange or red. The words are labels that mean we agree that these are shades of something similar, greens, because we've agreed to call them green - but it doesn't mean we're "seeing" the same shade, interpreting it the same way.
I'm fascinated by this question because I don't believe we can find an answer to it.
Or maybe because I also don't think the answer matters very much, but it is interesting in a QI kind of way.
And I think I wrote a post about this very topic maybe last year or the year before. It equates with the phrase 'you never know what goes on behind closed doors', and someone else's experience is always a closed door to us as we only ever experience the world through the lens of our own experience.
Yes. It was new to me too. The colour thing is one we can approximate with people who have lost their sight, but how to do it with those born sightless? But I have a whole other ongoing thing around colour and our inability to know what someone else sees.
By this I mean that we can both agree that grass is (assuming new growth & healthy) green. Therefore we have a certain shade that we see and agree is 'green'. By reference to it - or to other leaves, or carpets, or salad, or whatever - we agree is the colour we call green. However, I cannot know that what YOU think is green, is the same visual perception that I call green. For all we can ever know, I might be seeing something you would call blue, or purple, or brown or orange or red. The words are labels that mean we agree that these are shades of something similar, greens, because we've agreed to call them green - but it doesn't mean we're "seeing" the same shade, interpreting it the same way.
I'm fascinated by this question because I don't believe we can find an answer to it.
Or maybe because I also don't think the answer matters very much, but it is interesting in a QI kind of way.
And I think I wrote a post about this very topic maybe last year or the year before. It equates with the phrase 'you never know what goes on behind closed doors', and someone else's experience is always a closed door to us as we only ever experience the world through the lens of our own experience.