If we were all color blind... ?

An interesting resurrection of this thread after 5 years !

The philosophical issue is, of course, not about 'colour' per se but about whether what we call 'reality' is a function of our species specific physiological limitations. A secondary issue is whether those 'limitations' are extendable to 'cognitive mechanisms' which have been a sourrce of artificial transducer production and 'data' generation, thereby modifying the very concept of 'limits'.

If anybody wishes to discuss these more general epistemological and ontological issues I would be pleased to hear from them.

2 Replies

@fresco,

Wouldn't we all be nocturnal? Then we'd all be white, a horrible pallid, greyish white like Gollum.

1 Reply

@izzythepush,

izzythepush wrote:

Wouldn't we all be nocturnal? Then we'd all be white, a horrible pallid, greyish white like Gollum.

Why do you always include everyone in your self assessments?

0 Replies

This is an interesting topic. If we were all blind, I believe our other senses would have taken its place. I remember reading about some insects in a dark cave in TN or someplace where they survive in their environment.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

Dark night, that from the eye his function takes,
The ear more quick of apprehension makes;
Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,
It pays the hearing double recompense.

Shakespeare

0 Replies

@fresco,

Quote:

The philosophical issue is, of course, not about 'colour' per se but about whether what we call 'reality' is a function of our species specific physiological limitations.

Are you simply re-stating Kant's observation that our "knowledge" is conditioned on our "categories of understanding" and that, therefore, we can never know the "thing in itself?"

Old news. But it doesn't lead one to your brand of total subjectivism and solipsism, as you seem to think, eh, Fresky?

1 Reply

@fresco,

I am glad you brought this up. Because in the case we're talking about losing something instead of adding something through mind...
By the way we sort of are color blind to most of the light wavelenght spectrum. Still reason allowed us to know it exists even if we cant experience it directly.

0 Replies

@layman,

layman wrote:

Quote:
The philosophical issue is, of course, not about 'colour' per se but about whether what we call 'reality' is a function of our species specific physiological limitations.

Are you simply re-stating Kant's observation that our "knowledge" is conditioned on our "categories of understanding" and that, therefore, we can never know the "thing in itself?"

Old news. But it doesn't lead one to your brand of total subjectivism and solipsism, as you seem to think, eh, Fresky?

We often disagree but credit where credit is due mate... Wink

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

What if in reality, we see all the colors differently, but end up calling it the same color? What if what I call blue is really a different color from what you see as blue? Is that possible?

2 Replies

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

What if in reality, we see all the colors differently, but end up calling it the same color? What if what I call blue is really a different color from what you see as blue? Is that possible?

Surely nobody knows (or can possibly know) whether one person's perception of e.g. "yellow" is identical to another person's. I tend towards the belief that the very question is meaningless.

2 Replies

@centrox,

Philosophy was my minor. Wink

0 Replies

@centrox,

The key phrase which may be meeaningless is 'in reality'. A philosophical pragmatist would argue that 'reality' is 'that which we agree is functional in a particular context'. In short , there is no such thing as a reality independent of social agreement. But since 'agreement can be negotiated, or may be relative to specific social needs, then related concepts related to 'reality' like 'truth' can never be 'absolute' or permanent, no matter how psychologically attractive such a fixed foundation may be.

0 Replies

@cicerone imposter,

There are two possibilities:

Either we see very similar colors and we agree

Or we see distinct colors in a synchronized perfect correlation such that we agree in mistake.

Either way, we refer to a phenomena that is not just bound to mind.
Moreover "mind" can be just as deceiving as the color blind phenomena we refer to once experiencing is all we have. The picture of mind we perceive does not necessarily correspond to what is there.

Mind problems are a loop hole that eats itself up...

2 Replies

@Fil Albuquerque,

To put it simply:

We use concepts about "mind" to dissolve concepts on "reality"...
Nonsensical...
There is no denying experiencing is real.
Why ?
Because it refers to everything. (Including denials)
As for any other concept (including mind) which is more specific all we can do is related to its usefulness. Its essence is abstract and transcendental.
Grounding the denial of Reality as an absolute in the absolute of a concept of mind is self-refuting and lacks internal consistency.
Bluntly, such process thinking immediately categorizes an inferior reasoning ability from those to which this argument seems appealing.

0 Replies

In sum:

To speak on relatives you need at least one absolute.
(I consider this an irrefutable maxim)

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

...now then...that freaking whatever Absolute there is, IS SCARY !
(an Abstract monster)

0 Replies

Supposedly, everyone take for granted that what other person see is "yellow", "blue" or "cat". I find it fascinating whenever i try to focus on "here&now", on detail of surrounding objects I start to thnk that it cannot be happening. I don't know if my mind freaks out or what... But it is not comfortable at all.

0 Replies

@Fil Albuquerque,

I also believe we see the same things in many things beyond color. After all, our minds are created subjective.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

This thread has been resurrected from 2 years ago at which time it have been resurrected from five years prior to that. This shows the richness of the threads at that time.

I was a potter at one time, or a clay artist, as I called myself. I made a lot of flowers out of clay, and the glaze I used was an off-white one, no other colors. I found myself concentrating on the form of the objects rather than the colors. I think that would be probably true of all of us if we couldn't perceive colors, just black and white and various shades of gray. Of course you see that in many sculptures that are cast in metal or wood or clay, et al, and don't have any added color. The importance of the sculpture becomes the form. Think of a Henry Moore; any added color would just bring confusion.

0 Replies

@fresco,

Fresco, We are all color blind in the sense that in the physical world there is no color, just vibrations, same with sound and taste, this is one of many reasons the world is said to be meaningless, and in the absence of a conscious subject/biology, it certainly is meaningless. All meaning/values are the property of a conscious subject, never to the object, or the world as object.

2 Replies

If we were all color blind... ?

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know