What you see isn’t always the way things really are, like an optical illusion. Now I’m beginning to wonder, if you saw things through someone elses eyes, would the sky be fuschia and the grass ivory? Allow me to explain. Some of us are color blind, what if most of us are color enhanced, so we see colors that aren’t really there. We all have the same name for colors, because we learn them as a child. Do you remember reading a pick with phrases such as “The sun is yellow”, “The sea is blue”. We could see the picture, and learn our colors in such a way. Think about it, when you describe a color, you use objects of that color, unless you are using personal symbolism. An example of such symbolism, is that shades of blue never fail to remind me of the mountains, snow, cool crisp air, and flight.
Now, if you saw the world through someone elses eyes, would the colors be the same, or would the blue bird suddenly appear hot pink?
It is very much possible that if you looked through someone else’s eyes you would see different colors than you do now. In fact, if the colors you see are in a one-to-one correspondence with the colors that someone else sees, I expect there would be no way to tell whether or not this color-paradigm shift would happen. But I wonder – is it really meaningful to speak of “looking through someone else’s eyes”? I’m not sure you can look through someone else’s eyes without first looking through your own, so to speak.
I had a hard think about colours a few weeks ago, and the best I can come up with is a Platonic-like idea. First of all, you’ve probably noticed that our linear spectrum of colours can be made into a loop - that is, red can “flow” into purple just as red “flows” into orange. My current-best theory is that there’s an a priori loop of colour in the Platonic supersphere, which our proto-brains, when they had need for a means of differentiating between objects, “copied and pasted” onto the EM spectrum, making an arbitrary cut between red and purple in the process. (I don’t know if I even believe in the Platonic supershere.)
Has anyone read Schopenhauer’s “On Vision and Colours”? (I haven’t …yet) There must be something relevant to this thread in it.
Wittgenstein pondered this one for ages and concluded:
“The essential thing about private experience is really not that each person possesses his own exemplar, but that nobody knows whether other people also have this or something else. The assumption would thus be possible – though unverifiable – that one section of mankind had one sensation of red and another section another.”
Ah, metaphysics… If what one sees as far as color is concerned does not relate to that of the person standing next to you (or perhaps it does, we’ll never know), then one must wonder at the reality behind your presently known experience of life.
Your question was “if you saw things through someone elses eyes, would the sky be fuschia and the grass ivory?” I’m thinking that this is most likely not the case. How do we recognize that people are color blind? The answer is that someone probably recognized that the color blind persons use of a certain color did not correspond to their use of the color. For example, imagine a child who is painting a picture, but is at the age where he/she is actually attempting to create a true representation of the world through art. Now, if, in real life, this child does see the grass as ivory colored, and represents this view in his/her art, is it not likely that someone might ask the question “why did you paint the grass ivory?” At this point the child might immediately become aware that he/she does not see the world as the other person does when he/she replies “what do you mean, I painted the grass green?”.
If it really were impossible to tell whether or not people see colors the same then how do we come to identity people as color blind at all?
Hmm. I doubt it Webber. I’ve seen a test used to sort out color blindness, and I don’t know if they are all like this, but the one I looked like was a picture made up of dots. The dots were all reds, blues, yellows, purples, etc. The point of the test was this, when you are colorblind, then you will not see the dots of a certain color, and therefore will not be able to view the picture (the picture in this case was of a flower).
That is how you test colorblindness. Now, the next point here. Now, the child wouldn’t be painting ivory grass. You see, all children would learn the same names for colors (with the exception of color blindness, in which case some children get mixed up, ie calling the color red, pink). Remember all the little books with sentences such as, the “the sea is blue”? Now, it wouldn’t affect your personal sight, because everyone looks at grass, and calls it green. Now, if I were to look through someone elses eyes, the color they view as green, I might view as brown. Now, since we all would have the same name for a color, even though we personally view it in different colors, when little kids go to select the green paint pot(whether they view it as pink, or brown, or violet if I could look through their eyes is irrelevent), no matter what color they personally see, it is green. It is the color they view as green, and the color we all call green (unless, again, they are color blind).
if you saw it threw soomeone elses eyes, it would be the same. if you saw it threw someone elses ego, it would be different. alot of what i think the average person is seeing is a fixed image, an expectation. if you woke up, and in reality, it was just a nice sunny day, but before you could look out the window, you herd someone whos oppinion you value, say "its fucking hideous out there, you would then catch a tiny glimpse of the day, and then your expectations would infuse into it, and paint over it, making the day look a little less nice. when people meditate they are trying to get past the fixed image, and see whats there. i think thats how it might work, anyway.
I think the same might be for all senses. It is our mind and physical that creates perception. our physical bodies are supposed to be built with the same components in the same way with minor degrees of difference. It is our mind that recieves the information and our minds while similar are not all together the same but, close enough that the degree of difference is not percieved. Some may love oranges while others hate them most folks range in the middle. Taste feel, sight and smell have ranges. so yes we all see red just a bit different then our neighbor. Along with shapes.
but i do believe there is an objective “red”. when we can see things, withought expectation, then trees look like oil paintings and birds look like birds.
the fact that alot of people see red as a different shade, doesnt mean there isnt an objective red. people who can see red, and stare at red, withought thinking in words, those people are all seeing the same red. these people see past the fixed photo that gets taken by the brain. its like everyone has extreme a.d.d, so they cant actually concentrate. when you can see without thinking, then its like your back in reality again, your conciousness, becomes your vision, in a way. you can be on the highway and look over into the woods, and you can see depth, you can see deer inbetween trees. you just stop trying to tell yourself what your seeing, and you just see it, you let it imprint on your vision. its hard, but well worth staying up all night.