Imagine This
Imagine that you and a thousand other people lived deep in the jungle of Africa. Imagine further that every one of you had been born colorblind and none had any idea what color was. Imagine further that you were an exercise nut and discovered, quite by accident, that if you performed a certain sequence of exercises you developed color perception.
What would you do?
If you tried to tell the others what would they do? Would you be able to convince any one of them to follow your example? How would you explain to them what you had accomplished? Would they eventually kill you like the Athenians did Socrates?
Imagine This
Imagine This
Imagine that you and a thousand other people lived deep in the jungle of Africa. Okay, any reason why Africa? Or do you just somehow associate Africa with being super isolated?
Imagine further that every one of you had been born colorblind and none had any idea what color was.Um...colorblind as in you could percieve only shades of black/white/grey? Or colourblind in most of the usual senses of colourblind where certain sets of colours appear the same to you?
More also, how can you have "no idea" what colour is? At most you could perhaps not parse objects as being different using that exact word. But if you can tell that a glass has water in it or milk by looking at it, you can distinguish 'colour' in some sense.
Well, I'll try and imagine the idea that somehow we as a society have no concept that some objects look different from other objects on the basis of something other than texture...
Imagine further that you were an exercise nut and discovered, quite by accident, that if you performed a certain sequence of exercises you developed color perception.I'm going to assume I can substitute 'sequence of exercises' for anything at all that it is unlikely to have done in sequence (Such as saying some obscure pattern of words, or whatever) and you just mean "You discovered some means that was repeatable to give yourself colour perception."
What would you do?
Well, unless repeating the same sequence, or doing it backwards or some other vaguely logical process undid the change, so that I could actually establish what it was I did to change my ability to perceive, the next step would be to talk to someone I trusted and ask them to simply duplicate the process I discovered and see if they had the same effect occur.
If it did, and we now had a pattern, one assumes you'd just tell everyone that you've discovered a process by which you can gain the ability to distinguish the differences between objects more easily. I suppose almost if not all of them would try it simply to see if it worked, and then voila, everyone sees colour now.
If you tried to tell the others what would they do? That is an impossible question since I know nothing about these other people I live in Africa with. Depending on their beliefs, and the way our culture had developed, perciving the world in only shades of grey, I suppose I might sound a little crazy, but I also imagine that anybody and everybody I told about the process would give it a try just to see if I was nuts, so they'd be stuck no matter what.
Would you be able to convince any one of them to follow your example? I imagine it would be trivially easy to convince everybody who was physically capable of repeating the process I'd discovered to try it out, even if just on the basis of "Try this, it's really interesting"
How would you explain to them what you had accomplished? I suppose that would depend on the degree to which I determined that "seeing colour" was a benefit to me to distinguish objects from other similar objects. If we'd spent millenia as a culture distinguishing the world in shades of grey only, one assumes we'd have developed other senses to do things like tell a milk snake apart from a coral snake, so it might not even seem particularly useful a skill to suddenly gain. But I think "I seem to have developed the power to better differentiate objects from other objects" would be a pretty reasonable description.
Would they eventually kill you like the Athenians did Socrates? I have not even the faintest inkling of an idea what this question has to do with any of the above line of reasoning.
Socrates was executed by the Athenian government primarily on the charge of 'corrupting the youth of the city' for his propensity to encourage analysis and questioning of the status quo. I suppose if we assume some sort of religious or politicized system based around the inability to percieve colour (which makes no sense since you asserted above that no such concept even exists) then I suppose if you tried to be all iconoclastic about it, you might be viewed as a threat.
Otherwise I'm completely failing to see how "Hey guys, I discovered a way to develop an ability that is clearly beneficial and useful to our daily lives" is going to get you murdered. Perhaps I'm missing an implication somewhere?
Imagine further that every one of you had been born colorblind and none had any idea what color was.Um...colorblind as in you could percieve only shades of black/white/grey? Or colourblind in most of the usual senses of colourblind where certain sets of colours appear the same to you?
More also, how can you have "no idea" what colour is? At most you could perhaps not parse objects as being different using that exact word. But if you can tell that a glass has water in it or milk by looking at it, you can distinguish 'colour' in some sense.
Well, I'll try and imagine the idea that somehow we as a society have no concept that some objects look different from other objects on the basis of something other than texture...
Imagine further that you were an exercise nut and discovered, quite by accident, that if you performed a certain sequence of exercises you developed color perception.I'm going to assume I can substitute 'sequence of exercises' for anything at all that it is unlikely to have done in sequence (Such as saying some obscure pattern of words, or whatever) and you just mean "You discovered some means that was repeatable to give yourself colour perception."
What would you do?
Well, unless repeating the same sequence, or doing it backwards or some other vaguely logical process undid the change, so that I could actually establish what it was I did to change my ability to perceive, the next step would be to talk to someone I trusted and ask them to simply duplicate the process I discovered and see if they had the same effect occur.
If it did, and we now had a pattern, one assumes you'd just tell everyone that you've discovered a process by which you can gain the ability to distinguish the differences between objects more easily. I suppose almost if not all of them would try it simply to see if it worked, and then voila, everyone sees colour now.
If you tried to tell the others what would they do? That is an impossible question since I know nothing about these other people I live in Africa with. Depending on their beliefs, and the way our culture had developed, perciving the world in only shades of grey, I suppose I might sound a little crazy, but I also imagine that anybody and everybody I told about the process would give it a try just to see if I was nuts, so they'd be stuck no matter what.
Would you be able to convince any one of them to follow your example? I imagine it would be trivially easy to convince everybody who was physically capable of repeating the process I'd discovered to try it out, even if just on the basis of "Try this, it's really interesting"
How would you explain to them what you had accomplished? I suppose that would depend on the degree to which I determined that "seeing colour" was a benefit to me to distinguish objects from other similar objects. If we'd spent millenia as a culture distinguishing the world in shades of grey only, one assumes we'd have developed other senses to do things like tell a milk snake apart from a coral snake, so it might not even seem particularly useful a skill to suddenly gain. But I think "I seem to have developed the power to better differentiate objects from other objects" would be a pretty reasonable description.
Would they eventually kill you like the Athenians did Socrates? I have not even the faintest inkling of an idea what this question has to do with any of the above line of reasoning.
Socrates was executed by the Athenian government primarily on the charge of 'corrupting the youth of the city' for his propensity to encourage analysis and questioning of the status quo. I suppose if we assume some sort of religious or politicized system based around the inability to percieve colour (which makes no sense since you asserted above that no such concept even exists) then I suppose if you tried to be all iconoclastic about it, you might be viewed as a threat.
Otherwise I'm completely failing to see how "Hey guys, I discovered a way to develop an ability that is clearly beneficial and useful to our daily lives" is going to get you murdered. Perhaps I'm missing an implication somewhere?
Imagine This
coberst;1054336 wrote: Imagine This
Imagine that you and a thousand other people lived deep in the jungle of Africa. Imagine further that every one of you had been born colorblind and none had any idea what color was. Imagine further that you were an exercise nut and discovered, quite by accident, that if you performed a certain sequence of exercises you developed color perception.
What would you do?
If you tried to tell the others what would they do? Would you be able to convince any one of them to follow your example? How would you explain to them what you had accomplished? Would they eventually kill you like the Athenians did Socrates?
It would be pointless to tell the others anything. Although you now have color vision by accident, you have no idea what the others see or do not see.
Imagine that you and a thousand other people lived deep in the jungle of Africa. Imagine further that every one of you had been born colorblind and none had any idea what color was. Imagine further that you were an exercise nut and discovered, quite by accident, that if you performed a certain sequence of exercises you developed color perception.
What would you do?
If you tried to tell the others what would they do? Would you be able to convince any one of them to follow your example? How would you explain to them what you had accomplished? Would they eventually kill you like the Athenians did Socrates?
It would be pointless to tell the others anything. Although you now have color vision by accident, you have no idea what the others see or do not see.
Imagine This
Although you now have color vision by accident, you have no idea what the others see or do not see.
Though it's a pretty typical conclusion to draw that all things being equal, you all likely have eyes that function in a similar way. Also, Coberst neglected to discuss whether this was a contemporary group of people, or people from a period where they didn't have any understanding of optics.
What you evidentally do understand is that you've done something that has dramatically changed the way you personally percieve the world around you, and so even if you weren't completely positive that everyone else had a similar perception, I don't think there is a single person who would legitimately conclude "Well, I've percieved the world in this way my whole life, and never had anybody suggest they percieved differently, and now my perception is DRAMATICALLY CHANGED, but you know what, since I don't know how anybody else percieves the world, I'm simply going to say nothing to anybody about this DRAMATIC CHANGE"
Though it's a pretty typical conclusion to draw that all things being equal, you all likely have eyes that function in a similar way. Also, Coberst neglected to discuss whether this was a contemporary group of people, or people from a period where they didn't have any understanding of optics.
What you evidentally do understand is that you've done something that has dramatically changed the way you personally percieve the world around you, and so even if you weren't completely positive that everyone else had a similar perception, I don't think there is a single person who would legitimately conclude "Well, I've percieved the world in this way my whole life, and never had anybody suggest they percieved differently, and now my perception is DRAMATICALLY CHANGED, but you know what, since I don't know how anybody else percieves the world, I'm simply going to say nothing to anybody about this DRAMATIC CHANGE"
Imagine This
Devonin;1054558 wrote: Though it's a pretty typical conclusion to draw that all things being equal, you all likely have eyes that function in a similar way. Also, Coberst neglected to discuss whether this was a contemporary group of people, or people from a period where they didn't have any understanding of optics.
What you evidentally do understand is that you've done something that has dramatically changed the way you personally percieve the world around you, and so even if you weren't completely positive that everyone else had a similar perception, I don't think there is a single person who would legitimately conclude "Well, I've percieved the world in this way my whole life, and never had anybody suggest they percieved differently, and now my perception is DRAMATICALLY CHANGED, but you know what, since I don't know how anybody else percieves the world, I'm simply going to say nothing to anybody about this DRAMATIC CHANGE"
Yes, and for all you know, the others may already have color vision and you have just now joined the club.
What you evidentally do understand is that you've done something that has dramatically changed the way you personally percieve the world around you, and so even if you weren't completely positive that everyone else had a similar perception, I don't think there is a single person who would legitimately conclude "Well, I've percieved the world in this way my whole life, and never had anybody suggest they percieved differently, and now my perception is DRAMATICALLY CHANGED, but you know what, since I don't know how anybody else percieves the world, I'm simply going to say nothing to anybody about this DRAMATIC CHANGE"
Yes, and for all you know, the others may already have color vision and you have just now joined the club.
Imagine This
You would not have the words to describe what you see, if you did not know what color was.
I expressly forbid the use of any of my posts anywhere outside of FG (with the exception of the incredibly witty 'get a room already' )posted recently.
Folks who'd like to copy my intellectual work should expect to pay me for it.:-6
Folks who'd like to copy my intellectual work should expect to pay me for it.:-6
Imagine This
Yes, and for all you know, the others may already have color vision and you have just now joined the club.
Except that Coberst asserted in the formation of his question "every one of you had been born colorblind"
The only way to have been the last to join this club would be for someone else to have discovered the same or another magical sequence that accomplished the same thing, in which case my previous logic regarding why you would tell other people of such a fundamental change in the way you percieved the world would apply.
Further, the fatal flaw in your reasoning is that by Coberst's setup of the situation, anybody who followed your directions and reproduced the same sequence would also begin to see in colour.
Thus, either they would report a change in their perceptions, or they woudln't, which would tell you pretty easily whether you were the only one who didn't see that way.
You would not have the words to describe what you see, if you did not know what color was.
"I've undergone some sort of change in the way I percieve the world. Things appear visually different from how they did before today. Would you please try this sequence of actions and tell me if you see any change yourself?"
Except that Coberst asserted in the formation of his question "every one of you had been born colorblind"
The only way to have been the last to join this club would be for someone else to have discovered the same or another magical sequence that accomplished the same thing, in which case my previous logic regarding why you would tell other people of such a fundamental change in the way you percieved the world would apply.
Further, the fatal flaw in your reasoning is that by Coberst's setup of the situation, anybody who followed your directions and reproduced the same sequence would also begin to see in colour.
Thus, either they would report a change in their perceptions, or they woudln't, which would tell you pretty easily whether you were the only one who didn't see that way.
You would not have the words to describe what you see, if you did not know what color was.
"I've undergone some sort of change in the way I percieve the world. Things appear visually different from how they did before today. Would you please try this sequence of actions and tell me if you see any change yourself?"