Hi, Thursday, November 6, 2003, 9:42:35 PM, you wrote:
>>I don't think it's empirically testable. If two people attach the same >>label to the same experience then that is all we can know, or need to >>know. (...) >>Bob > Among some amazonian groups, there is a single word for both green or > blue, But if you show people both green and blue colors and ask if > these are different, they will say they are. They just don't find it > usefull for their purposes to distinguish linguistically these two > retinian impressions. Now, talk about the color of snow to an > Inuit... Yes, it's true for many different peoples. It's not quite what I meant though. At the risk of boring everybody to death, here's what I meant. Let's assume that you and I can both distinguish between the colour of a matadors' cape, the colour of the clear sky, and the colour of grass. Suppose you and I are looking at the same matador's cape under identical lighting conditions. It is possible that the colour sensation you experience when you look at the cape is the same as the one I experience when I look at a clear sky. It is also possible that the sensation I experience when looking at the cape is the same as the sensation you experience when you look at grass. The important thing is that it's possible we may each have a different colour experience when we look at the same thing. We have agreed to attach the label 'red' to the colour sensation we experience when looking at a matador's cape, but our experiences are different. This is almost certainly a true, but highly exaggerated, account of what really happens. Provided each of us always has the same response to the same stimulus – i.e. each of us has consistent colour vision – then it doesn't matter that your response and my response to the same stimulus differ, because our responses are wholly internal. In addition, we can't test to see whether our responses differ or not, because we can only externalise the experience by showing the other person something that provokes in us the same response as the original stimulus. Consistency means that they will experience their characteristic response. Because of this it makes no difference at all to anything whether our internal experiences are the same or different. We behave, and the world behaves, as if they are the same. Our brains are mutual Chinese boxes. This is different from the people who say each of their eyes sees the same thing slightly differently, because these people can compare the sensations in the same brain. That is roughly equivalent to a 3rd person being able to compare our mental experiences and notice the differences. It is also different from typical colour blindness, which is just a reduced ability to distinguish between colours. For instance, I might have the same colour sensation when I look at a matador's cape and at Robin Hood's legwear, whereas you might experience 2 different colour sensations. This in turn is different from your Amazonian example. -- Cheers, Bob mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
