blind colour

weird question but common.

how or is it possible to describe a colour to a blind human and they are able understand?

I think that if you can’t taste something then you can’t tell the flavour of that thing, so it would be very difficult for the blind to understand colour no doubt.

However Helen Keller, who was deaf dumb and blind, learnt to write I think. When she was a few months old, she got this high fever I think which made her deaf and dumb, but I think she was born blind. Anyway, she was deaf dumb and blind from a very tender age I know. So her governess once took her to a waterfall and made her cup her hand underneath the fall of water and then she drew the words, W A T E R on her hand several times and consciousness dawned on Helen that water has a name. Otherwise, how do you make her understand that things have a name, and without that understanding how do you teach anything to a deaf dumb and blind? You can’t. So this way Helen learnt that everything has a name and so her education began. I think it’s Helen Keller who said that, ‘Be bold! Hold a rose stem gently and you get pricked, if you hold it boldly, its spines crumble.’ The quote doesn’t go like this but that’s the gist of it.

blind people have no data about color in his brain, but it’s still possible, we just need to ‘TRANSFER’ the color data to his brain(if we have the technology)

Ha ha ha! That’s funny! The reason I think something is brown is because every other colour is absorbed but brown is reflected back, which is what meets your eye. So, where exactly does the brain and reception of colour by the brain come in first, before the eye?

whitelotus,
Why don’t you make the long story short or stop beating around the bush and tell us exactly how you would explain the concept of colour to a blind. I’m really interested to know. Because as far as I see, if he’s not deaf then you can tell him verbally that there are different colours. But how would he UNDERSTAND without seeing ANY colour? And what exactly does BTW mean, I don’t know, can you tell me that too?

BTW = By The Way

and obviously a blind man will never know what a color looks like.

i didnt finish that post BTW, so ill continue…i believe beena is on the right track with how helen keller learned how to understand the world around her in relation to helping a blind man understand the world of color. as an artist, i often wonder what does a blind man feel about art.

Graighter, thanks for explaining what BTW means.

whitelotus,
You do realize that from what you’re saying, the blind can only understand the intensity of dark and bright, moreover I know this that, the blind can tell when it’s dark and when light outside, which means the blind already knows that light or darkness varies in intensity.

Here’s a thought guys! Can the blind people dream? And if so, then are their dreams coloured or black & white entirely? I would really like to know that.

whitelotus,
You’re just comparing the intensity of light with intensity of feeling. And then you’re concluding that the variation in intensity will help the blind understand the colours like red, green, yellow, blue, etc. How? If they cannot envision any other colour except black and white, then how how can they think of green or yellow? Now don’t come and tell me that black and white are not colours but absence and presence of light, I’m not getting into that, you know what I mean. And why wouldn’t dreams help explain? If the blind can dream in colour somehow then the problem is actually resolved, how can you throw away the strongest viewpoint that could help us here? Is it just because I suggested it and not you? Besides, you never explained satisfactorily how we can make a blind understand colour so don’t pretend that you did. You can tell the blind there is something called colour and that his shirt is green but how will the blind envision what green is like? That was the point! And you never clarified it.

I believe this is the first time whitelotus and I have been on the same page!

Beena,

The ability to “see” color is entirely subjective, and it doesn’t make a bit of difference whether you are blind or not. I cannot “see” the color(s) you experience nor can you see my color(s). Individual eye/ brain responses are unique even though they share enough commonality for us to agree that an apple is “red” and an orange is, well, “orange”. There are slight differences that only each individual can experience. My red might appear to you as orange-red and your orange might appear to me as yellow/orange. Additionally, there are a host of other descriptions applied to ‘color’ as we struggle to define what we are ‘seeing’. Intensity, saturation, tone, shade, are just a few. We describe a color as being warm or cool, or light or dark. Just what color is “dusty rose”?

whitelotus hit it spot on. Color can be described to a blind person by relating to their other senses, and with that, a blind person can “see” color as well as the sighted are able.

Just how do you know what a blind person sees or doesn’t see, anyway?

JT

My dear tentative,

I read on a website that the born blind don’t even see anything visual in their dreams. On another website I read this, “and the only reason I know what it looks like is by touch.” this means that we can see dreams because we can actually see and perhaps the born blind cannot see dreams because they cannot see. Therefore, since they only see through the touch and intuitive feeling, it seems to me that they cannot see what colour is ever unless they could somehow intuition it out. I don’t know, I don’t want to talk about something I know little about.

P.S. And please don’t give me some nonsense whitelotus talks about, as far as I see, a blind can understand the concept of colour if you explain it to him but he won’t see what green looks like or what blue looks like, ok? I don’t like coming to conclusions like you guys have done regarding the blind, without basis. You wanna do that, be my guest but leave me out.

You need to understand that a blind can try to understand the concept of colour but cannot SEE colour ever. I think tentative that you and whitelotus are failing to differentiate between the two, ok?

whitelocust,
Therefore, since YOU also imply that I have nothing to teach and you have nothing to learn from me, I sincerely suggest that you stay away from my posts and DO NOT comment upon them EVER! If you do, I’ll be forced to remark too, in your own words, “I think you have a problem reading…a serious problem even.” Plus I’ll be forced to remark in more of your own words, no one on this forum is mentally “retarded” like YOU! :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

P.S. locust = destructive migratory grasshopper :stuck_out_tongue: