What Do I Know? I Don’t.
Both my kids have normal colour vision. They think it’s funny that I don’t, and I think it’s funny that they do, and they totally understand that red and green, to me, are a concept.
In spiritual terms, I’m a colour agnostic. Red and green may exist and I’m sure that other people are certain that they do, but I couldn’t swear on it.
If I were a colour atheist, and you said: “Don’t be stupid, you have your red, you have your green - I can see it, it’s right there!” then I would say “No it’s not. You can’t prove it, so I’m telling you that you can’t see it.” But that’s not good.
Or, if I were a true colourist believer, I might say, “I am certain that red and green exist, because that is what we are taught and that is what millions of people believe, and so be it.” And I’m not sure that’s the right thing either.
But really, whether or not I believe in a distinction between red or green makes no difference to the possibility that they may not exist or not. Things will still continue to be how they are.
Like I said, there’s nothing wrong with a mystery. Ignorance is bliss and there is a certain wisdom in not knowing - and comfort in the acceptance of insecurity.
May 2nd, 2006 at 9:15 am
Yes, but scientists are the ones who say they don’t know, and the religious types are the ones who assure us they DO know.
None of us can see the big bang, but we use scientific discovery and thinking to build up a theory.
Just because you can’t see red and green, doesn’t mean you can’t prove their existence through other scientific means.
There are many things in science we can’t literally see, or physically experience, but which we can know they exist through other means.
That’s why atheism is the logical assumption, until the day there’s the tiniest shred of evidence.
May 2nd, 2006 at 5:59 pm
I always thought that it was the scientists who required proof and the religious believers who could believe in something they couldn’t see or had no proof of?
It’s all subjective, I think. Colors are a high concept and my red may be different from your red even though we both call it the same red. THough the scientists have got colors measured into certain wavelengths of the lightwave cycle, and this is supposed to be the exact standard, if this is the case, then it is no longer a visual experience but a measured and calibrated one.
Oddly, I don’t feel bad for Cliff missing out on the beauty of color, because I don’t doubt that he can see very colorful beauty as well as I can. It’s just that his sunsets and cherry blossoms and things might not be beautiful, but maybe his blue skies and sun-over-the-oceans are just as beautiful .
May 3rd, 2006 at 8:31 am
I have trouble with black and navy blue, which doesn��t trouble me at traffic lights and didn��t stop me getting into the RAF (don��t know about the navy) but is nevertheless a serious handicap because the Everton website has a navy blue background and the side cursor is black. Or is it the other way round? Whichever, unless the cursor��s at the top I can never find it ? fortunately it usually is.
May 3rd, 2006 at 11:34 am
I know all about you and you’re ‘dicky’ eyes. And I’ve seen you’ve been round mine again. Anyway about these Eurythmics records…Oh aye, love to the missus n ting x
May 4th, 2006 at 9:41 pm
simon is surely wrong. If everyone was like you, Mr. Jones, then we would have no names for those non-signignificant and not meaningful spots on the wavelength where red and green supposedly reside. There aren’t spikes on the wavelength, nor dots, arrows or anything meaningful there.
May 5th, 2006 at 1:10 am
But.. but.. but… how do you KNOW you can’t see red/green??
How do you know it’s not what we see? And what makes what ‘we’ see the only thing to be seen?
My mother has one eye (in-the-middle-of-her-forehead *stobbit sooz!*).. ahem… errr one eye which is green and one which is hazel. She had operations to correct her crossed eyes when she was a child.
She can’t match colours to save her life - yet she thinks she can! She’ll say ‘that’s the same colour as this’ and it’s sooo not! She seems not to see toning colours yet sees the basic named colours.
Do you drive? Do you know when traffic lights go the appropriate colours to go and stop at?
Did Monks write colour-definition charts for us to agree with?
May 7th, 2006 at 11:19 am
Bingo! Sooz. I’m not sure I can see what I don’t know is there.
Traffic lights, for some reason, look different. Red busses and grass don’t. It’s all about the hues.
Maybe I can see things you can’t. I can see the difference between camouflage and trees really well.
May 7th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
Manual Trackback. This post is cited in Blogmandu, Roundup for Apr 30 - May 6, 2006.